Help with tissue injury

Hey all,

I know I'm not a regular contributor - mainly jumping on here to freak out when abnormalities arise, but I would really appreciate help with other folks who encountered soft-tissue injuries with their fish. I have a pink tuxedo guppy that started acting depressed this morning. When I came home from work this evening, I noticed this swelling just before his rear. It looks like quite a large injury. I don't have a clue how this might've happened. All the other fish in the tank are doing well. He didn't eat tonight. He's acting quite reserved, swimming at the very surface of the water. Anything that I can do to make this little dude feel better?

(Apologies for the poor quality picture. He's not showing the injured side of him much in the direction I need for a decent picture Note the greyish swelling just past his dorsal fin.)

Any chance of a picture/s from the side?

It could be a bacterial infection but it's hard to tell from above.

How long have you had the fish?
Have you added anything to the tank in the last 2 weeks?
What is the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate of the tank water?

What is the GH (general hardness), KH (carbonate hardness) and pH of your water supply?
This information can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

----------------------
Until you can post some more pictures, I would do the following.

Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week or until we work out what is going on. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration when using salt or medications because they reduce the dissolved oxygen in the water.

Add salt, (see directions below).

----------------------
SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 2 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria but the higher dose rate (4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will affect some plants and some snails. The lower dose rate will not affect fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

Good morning, Colin! Thank you for this thorough reply I checked the ammonia levels this morning and they're good. I'll vacuum and change the water asap just to reduce any baddies that might be hurting this little guy. I purchased the fish about four days ago.

I have not added any new chemicals, plants, decor into the tank at all. It's a heavily planted tank that has four guppies and two mystery snails.

I can get salt, but I don't have it on hand at the moment. Would Seachem Paraguard help this guy for the time being? I have some immediately on hand and it outlines that it can be used for bacterial and fungal infections, or would it hurt the inverts in the tank? Also, I have a few more pics for you. Hopefully they are more informative.

The reason why I believed it to be an injury was because it happend so suddenly, within the course of a day- and none of the other fish are exhibiting any symptoms similar to him. Note also the abnormal clear-ish (mucusy?) discharge coming from him.

I would try salt first or move the snails into another container while you treat the guppies. Alternatively, move the guppy to a separate container to treat so you aren't adding things to the display tank.

Seachem Paraguard contains aldehyde (a type of formaldehyde) and Malachite Green. These will both knock snails around, especially the Malachite Green, which is a known carcinogen (causes cancer) and should be handled with extreme care.

Always wash hands with warm soapy water after handling either of these chemicals or working in tanks that contain them.

Colin_T said:

I would try salt first or move the snails into another container while you treat the guppies. Alternatively, move the guppy to a separate container to treat so you aren't adding things to the display tank.

Seachem Paraguard contains aldehyde (a type of formaldehyde) and Malachite Green. These will both knock snails around, especially the Malachite Green, which is a known carcinogen (causes cancer) and should be handled with extreme care.

Always wash hands with warm soapy water after handling either of these chemicals or working in tanks that contain them.

Click to expand...

This is all super good information, Colin. I appreciate your help so much!